On the downside of the personal technology revolution, wired devices are stoking another sort of attention deficit disorder, in graduate schools across the land. The Christian Science Monitor reports.

Wireless Internet access at universities was once thought to be a clear-cut asset to education. But now a growing number of graduate schools - after investing a fortune in the technology - are blocking Web access to students in class because of complaints from professors. (University of Michigan law professor Don) Herzog first went on the offensive in his own law classes, banning laptops for a day as an experiment. The result, he says, was a "dream" discussion with students that led him to advocate more sweeping changes.

This school year, the University of Michigan Law School became the latest graduate school to block wireless Internet access to students in class, joining law schools at UCLA and the University of Virginia. The problem professors face is "continuous partial attention," an expression coined by Linda Stone, a former Microsoft executive, to describe how people check e-mail and try to listen to someone at the same time. "As a teacher, you can tell when someone is there, but it's just their body that is there," says Douglas Haneline, a professor of English literature at Ferris State University in Grand Rapids, Mich. "Their face is on 'screensaver,' so to speak, because what they are really doing is checking their e-mail."

Others quoted in the story defend maintaining access for wireless devices in grad school classrooms, arguing the issue is behavorial - that there have always been ways for students to tune out, long before computers became prevalent; and besides, students will have to control their own usage of personal technology outside the classroom, and in adulthood, so why not give them that responsibility in the classroom, too?

I'm with the traditionalists on this one. The undergraduate and graduate school classroom is a special place, and full attention should be required. Otherwise, you're there for the wrong reasons, taking up space that would be better utilized by someone more interested in learning. Further, in the old days, it was clear students reading newspapers were tuning out. Now, they use laptops to look as if they're engaged when often they're not.

Abuse of easy-to-use personal publishing technology such as MySpace.com pages continues to affect high school students, and even public officials who should, like, know sooo much better. I wrote previously here about some high-schoolers near Detroit who produced a worthy educational video highlighting careless revelations of classmates on MySpace, and related online precautions.

More recently, the Los Angeles Times reports, tensions stemming from a fight between a black and Middle Eastern student at Hart High School in Newhall, California last week reached such a point that someone Monday posted a very alarming incitement to gun violence against a Los Angeles County Sherriff's Deputy who worked at Hart, and also white female blondes at the district's five high schools. News of the posting spread quickly by cell phone, instant messaging devices and e-mail (a good thing), and many students opted out of school Tuesday. Understandably so, considering that nowadays Internet postings or e-mails are commonly used by high-schoolers to deliver threats of planned gun massacres, some of which then occur and some of which don't. And, like, what did blondes have to do with it, anyway, like?

Finally, for today, at least, we have the sad saga of Waldwick, New Jersey Board of Education Trustee Richard Peluso, 36. He was compelled to resign after his MySpace.com page was discovered. The contents included personal topics that were not quite the sort of stuff you would want a public official to reveal to all comers on the Internet, including:

.....past drug use, alcohol habits and sexual relationships. It also said that he is a member of the Waldwick Fire Department, that his mother died on Feb. 13 and that he is 36 years old, all of which is true of Peluso. In an April 5 interview with The Record, Peluso denied any knowledge of MySpace and said that he may have been targeted by someone upset with the Board of Education. The day after The Record's article, Peluso filed a police report alleging that someone manipulated his MySpace account without his consent. He has since withdrawn that complaint and recanted his story, police said. Waldwick police do not plan to press charges against Peluso for filing a false report.

What a hoser. Remember, this guy is (rather, was) a school board member. First, he misunderestimates the reach of MySpace and posts intimate personal data, a mistake more common to naive high-schoolers. Then, he fails to take responsibility, by falsely claiming someone else manipulated his account.

Right-o. On the Internet, no one knows someone isn't a dog. Or an anonymous wingnut. Or so Peluso supposed for a hot day or two. Until, I'm sure, detectives checked with MySpace back-end administrators on his claim of outside tampering with his account, and found that wasn't true. Leading to his recantation, and resignation.

Truly, just as personal technology facilitates productivity, data analysis, artistic and creative expression and valuable social networking; it is also a platform for distraction, isolation, aggression, stupidity, addiction and danger.

Use it intelligently, and know when to unplug entirely.

TECHNORATI TAGS: PERSONAL TECHNOLOGY, MULTITASKING, LAPTOP BAN, CLASSROOM, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN, ANN ARBOR, FERRIS STATE UNIVERSITY, GRAND RAPIDS, MYSPACE.COM, NEWHALL, CALIFORNIA, WALDWICK, NEW JERSEY, RICHARD PELUSO

Posted by Matt Rosenberg at May 4, 2006 05:22 PM